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Biomedical subjects

R C Sider

Publications and source records attributed to R C Sider.

12 recordsLinked to original sources
PubMed1984

Patients' ethical obligation for their health.

In contemporary medical ethics health is rarely acknowledged to be an ethical obligation. This oversight is due to the preoccupation of most bioethicists with a rationalist, contract model for ethics in which moral obligation is limited to truth-telling and promise-keeping. Such an ethics is poorly suited to medicine because it fails to appreciate that medicine's basis as a moral enterprise is oriented towards health values. A naturalistic model for medical ethics is proposed which builds upon biological and medical values. This perspective clarifies ethical obligations to ourselves and to others for life and health. It provides a normative framework for the doctor-patient relationship within which to formulate medical advice and by which to evaluate patient choice.

Attitude to Health↗
PubMed1984

The ethics of therapeutic modality choice.

Psychiatrists usually select therapeutic modalities for their patients on the basis of empirical and theoretical considerations. Only in special circumstances (e.g., psychosurgery) are ethical concerns primary. Yet every therapeutic decision involves questions of value and requires ethical justification. The author outlines four resources for ethical direction in therapy: a general systems or biopsychosocial formulation of the clinical problem, the historic ethical commitments of the medical profession, the patient's informed perspective, and the psychiatrist's own values. Finally, a method is proposed for the resolution of conflicts among these four perspectives in individual cases.

Attitude of Health Personnel↗
PubMed1983

Suicide: bad act or good intervention.

This article develops a different perspective on the ethics of suicide, based on theoretical and clinical grounds. In terms of value theory, applying "good" or "bad" to the suicide act makes no sense. We need to shift our focus from a search for an ethical statement about suicide (e.g., "rational suicide") to the ethical justification for intervention based on the needs and interests of an affirming therapeutic profession. We choose to intervene because of values we hold about well-functioning, existence, potential for human life; and because as emphatic, social beings, we feel for others and are motivated by that feeling. This justification leads us to suggest a situational case-centered ethics for suicide intervention.

Ethics, Medical↗
PubMed1982

Family or individual therapy: the ethics of modality choice.

The authors examine the ethical issues in choosing between individual and social unit (marital and family) therapies. Although usually neglected in the literature, these ethical questions are important and complex. A general systems perspective is used to provide a framework for ethical analysis. The core of the ethical problem is shown to be the interdependence and irreducible conflict inherent between the individual and social unit levels. The authors outline a general systems approach to identification and consideration of these ethical issues in clinical practice.

Choice Behavior↗
PubMed1982

Psychiatry's contribution to medical ethics education.

Two recent trends in medical education, the growth of interest in biomedical ethics and the examination of psychiatry's status in medicine, have important implications for psychiatry. Educators are needed to bring a clinical perspective to bear on ethics instruction, yet psychiatrists risk missing this opportunity. Psychiatrists are uniquely suited to contribute because of their expertise in three areas: an understanding of the affective, nonrational components in ethical thought and behavior, a developmental perspective regarding personal morality, and an appreciation of the rootedness of ethics in the social ethos. Problems with contemporary ethical models of informed consent illustrate the value of psychiatry's contribution.

Affect↗
PubMed1979

Generalized decline in psychologic functioning.

In late middle age, many patients consult physicians with nonspecific complaints involving a decline in mental functioning. Distinguishing between psychologic and organic causes of mental impairment, particularly between depression and dementia, is essential.

Dementia↗
PubMed1976

Economizing with psychotropic drugs.

Every health practitioner can reduce the cost of his treatments without compromising their quality. A review of the magnitude of the cost problem with regard to psychotropic drugs, variables which affect cost, the methods by which the clinician can manipulate the variables to reduce costs, and the application of these methods to the major classes of psychotropic drugs will show that substantial savings can be achieved easily and with no sacrifice in efficacy.

Anti-Anxiety Agents↗